


Partners (A Series of Firsts)

by RedTeamShark



Category: S.W.A.T. (2003), S.W.A.T. - All Media Types
Genre: (But not the canon movie ending), 5+1 Things, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Homophobia, Homophobic Slurs, Platonic Love, Set in the 90s, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 02:28:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18714658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedTeamShark/pseuds/RedTeamShark
Summary: Five Firsts for Jim Street and Brian Gamble. And a Last.





	Partners (A Series of Firsts)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not even going to pretend that this whole thing (plus another Whole Thing I'm working on for a different small fandom) isn't 100% because I've been on a Jeremy Renner kick since watching Avengers Endgame. 
> 
> I regret (almost) nothing.

_i. The First Time They Saw Each Other Again_

Partners used to mean something.

It used to mean having each other’s backs, trusting the other guy to trust you.

Well, words could change, he guessed. Amazing how much they changed in a month.

“What’s wrong, Jimbo? No one got your back now that you turned on me?” Gamble shoved him across the alley, sent him stumbling through slick garbage and vomit.

Let it happen, he told himself. Gamble was rash on a good day, and when his temper got the better of him, all logic went out the window.

Fingers curled in the front of his shirt and his skull cracked against the bricks. Street let out a low groan, trying to shake the spots from his vision. “Bri…”

“Guess the only thing a gun-bunny like you is good for now is cleaning the other guy’s barrel, huh?” A hand grasped his jaw, fingers and thumb digging in until it hurt too much not to open his mouth. “You sit back behind that cage and bat your pretty eyelashes at all the big, tough cops that come in until one takes enough pity to get his dick wet in you?” Dimly, he registered that Gamble wasn’t just talking shit--these were genuine questions. His old partner, asking if he whored himself around the shop.

(It wasn’t really that Gamble thought he did, it was that Gamble knew him, knew how to _hurt_ him, and throwing the same shit that Street would cold-cock someone for saying about his partner into his face? That shit _hurt_.)

“I--” The sentence choked off as Gamble’s fingers dug in hard enough to leave bruises he’d feel for days.

“I don’t wanna _fucking_ hear it. You chose yourself over me. You suck Fuller’s dick, too? That what he wanted with your little one-on-one that day?” The grip on his jaw finally eased, just as his brain got around to telling his arms to start moving. Street grabbed onto Gamble’s forearm, squeezing down.

“Gamble, stop.”

A knee to the stomach sent him bent double, holding his gut and letting his forehead rest on Gamble’s chest. He groaned lowly, feeling everything he’d eaten and drank lurch upwards. The hand was back on him, at the back of his neck this time. “How long were we partners, Jimmy?” The grip was gentle, almost caressing. “Five years. That’s… shit, that’s one of them noteworthy anniversaries. And you decided to end it, just like that.”

“I didn’t end it, you did.” He sucked in a breath, pulled away from the other man and tried to keep his feet under him. Had Gamble paid off Melissa at the bar to slip something into his drink? Question he never thought he’d have to ask himself.

Gamble was staring at him, brows knit together, his face criss-crossed in deep shadow and arc-sodium yellow. “You coulda come with me, Jimmy-boy. You and me, we woulda figured out how to be just fine. Together.”

A passing car threw Gamble’s face into stark white headlight glow, every emotion in his shifting, expressive eyes on full display. Street watched him, reading the stormy weather behind his friend, his _partner’s_ words and actions.

Betrayal.

Hurt.

Abandonment.

Those were new.

(He’d seen them once before, when he’d been too angry to admit it to himself. Gamble might have broken the rules and tossed his life away in a fit of ill temper, but it was Street’s decision to stick with the force that had broken him.)

“Brian.” He reached up, curled his hand over the back of Gamble’s neck and pulled him in, forehead-to-forehead. “You think I wanted to lose you? Jesus, we were gonna have everything together.”

The look on his face solidified and _that_ was an expression Street knew well, one he’d seen on Gamble’s face over and over across the years. Anger. “ _Were_ gonna, yeah. Man, _fuck_ you. You go back to your safe little cage. I’ll be out here makin’ the world that _I_ wanna live in.” He shoved Street back to the wall again, turning and stalking off down the alley.

* * *

_ii. The First Time They Met_

“It is an honor and a privilege…” God damn, could the chief drone on. Street tried not to shift in his seat, tried not to look over-eager or over-bored or over-anything. _Play nice with the other kids_ , that had been his C.O.’s advice when he’d expressed interest in the police academy after the SEALs. And he _had_ played nice with the other ‘kids’ even though he was years older than most of them and had more combat experience than they’d ever see in their lives. If they were lucky.

“God, can this guy drone or what?” A voice whispered behind him, echoing his thoughts so well he had a moment of fear that he’d spoken the words aloud.

Street didn’t turn around, but he nodded slightly, spoke over his shoulder from the corner of his mouth. “Yeah…”

(Years down the line, looking at the ‘class photo’ of the new recruits to the LAPD, Street would see that cocksure grin of Gamble’s in a crowd of serious faces and _still_ wonder if it was an invitation or a warning. Stay or go.

He chose to be invited.)

They met properly, face to face, in the duty room, desks across from each other. Despite the air of urgent professionalism among most of the new recruits getting situated into whatever niche they could find in the precinct, someone decided the optimal thing to do was to flick a note at him.

Street stared at the little triangle of paper that had landed in the middle of his desk, glancing up for the perpetrator. There, at the desk across from him was a guy with dirty blond hair, his uniform already looking rumpled. _Open it_ , he mouthed, and Street heaved a sigh before doing as expected.

Eight words. Eight words on paper told him everything he needed to know about Brian Gamble. Was it any wonder Street couldn’t resist?

 _Do You Like Me?_  
_(Check One)  
⎸Yes ⎸No_

He glanced up again, trying to measure how serious the question actually was, the corner of his mouth pulling into a helpless grin as the guy looked at him expectantly. They hadn’t exchanged two words yet while facing each other, but he just knew. He pulled a pen from the side of his desk, touching it to his bottom lip as if genuinely contemplating the question. Answer chosen, he folded it back up and flicked it over, just as the Captain walked into the room. Damn, they really _did_ always catch the second one.

Go figure, that the first time he met Gamble was also the first time Fuller chewed his ass out.

(Almost a decade later, he found the note among Gamble’s things while cleaning out his former partner’s desk, and something lurched in his heart that of all the stupid bullshit they did, _this_ was the memento Gamble kept. Creased so deeply it had to have been folded and unfolded over and over. Nine words now, eight of them in Gamble’s messy black writing.

 _Do You Like Me?_  
_(Check One)  
⎸Yes ⎸No_

And the ninth at the bottom, blue pen, block capitals and an obnoxious check mark.

 _🗹_ **_MAYBE_ **)

* * *

_iii. The First Time They Went to the Bar_

The first day shift after three solid weeks of night shift had them both wrecked and Street knew it. So of course when Gamble chugged one of his energy drinks like he was still fifteen, not staring at thirty on the near horizon, and asked if he wanted to go to the bar after their shift, he said yes.

Paradiso wasn’t the typical cop stop kind of bar that Street was used to, but Gamble seemed to fit right in with the rough-and-tumble crowd. He gave the bartender a grin and a wink, brought back two brightly colored drinks complete with little umbrellas.

“Told Melissa we just got done protectin’ and serving, so first drink is on the house, but she gets to choose,” he explained as he sat down, unashamedly taking a sip of the nearly neon colored cocktail.

(The bar still had a framed picture of them from the night they won that pool tournament. The glass was broken and someone had put a goatee and devil’s horns on him with black marker, but the picture was still there.)

Street took a swallow and made a face, passing the rest of his drink over without question. “Is that a fucking shirley temple?”

“Real man’s man, ain’tcha?” Gamble finished his own drink and started on Street’s, kicking one foot up on the low faux rock wall around the fireplace. “What’s your usual?”

“Corona’s fine.” He glanced up as the bartender came by, his own tentative smile on his mouth. “Or whatever you have on tap.”

“Rum and coke for me, ‘Lis,” Gamble nodded, his arms stretching over his head.

Street couldn’t help but stare, piecing together the bit of the tattoo on his friend’s bicep. “Army Rangers?”

“Six years with’em, my man. Tactics and marksmanship. Did my time in the desert, made it out alive.” He took his drink, taking a sip as Melissa passed Street a bottle. “You serve?”

“Navy. SEALs. Guess we won’t be watching much football together.” Still, he raised his bottle to Gamble’s glass, shaking his head. “At least you ain’t a fuckin’ flyboy.”

“Nah.” There was something in Gamble’s gaze, something that Street would later learn to read. Guarded and assessing, determining if he was able to be trusted. “My ex was, though.”

An assessment he passed it seemed, as he sat back and cocked an eyebrow. “You two split over service branches?”

“We didn’t wanna do the distance thing. Besides, don’t ask, don’t tell, right? It woulda been too much of a hassle, trying to keep anyone from having to ask.”

Street nodded, taking another swallow of his beer. “LAPD doesn’t have that rule.”

“No, but most of the meatheads at the shop think that they’re hot just ‘cause they got a dick.” Gamble grinned, looking him up and down slowly. “Only hot ones are the ones that don’t think that.”

“Man, you must find me ugly as sin, then.” They both laughed, a small uproar in the corner.

Just like that, it was fine. They were friends. Gamble trusted him, and Street figured he could extend the same courtesy.

* * *

_iv. The First Time They Did It Right_

Called in on their fucking day off for a drug bust. Street cursed under his breath as he buckled his vest, glancing over to Gamble on the other side of the truck’s open back. The man looked like hell warmed over and although they were on the clock, he took a second to clap a hand onto his partner’s shoulder. “How long since your last drink?”

“Twelve hours. ‘M good,” Gamble assured him, fighting down a yawn. “Sleep schedule’s been a little fucky since we made S.W.A.T.”

“Velasquez will let us sit this one out if you’re not up to the job. Can’t be a hero every day.”

Gamble shoved him off, the sleepiness on his face pushed away in favor of determination. “I got this, Jimbo. Worry about yourself.”

One last check of Gamble’s eyes and he nodded, finished gearing up and jogged to join the briefing.

“DEA called an LAPD unit in for back-up on a meth lab bust about two hours ago. S.O.P. at the beginning, but it turns out a few of the tweakers have some firepower. We’ve got an officer down inside, GSW to the leg. Two more officers and two agents as hostages for tweakers that are now demanding the mayor come sign official legalization of what they’re doing. Obviously, we’re not going to do that.” Velasquez shook his head, pointing to teams. “Brinks, Santino, I want you on the south side, prepare to breech on my mark. Hernandez, O’Rourke, that rooftop, ready to snipe. Gamble, Street, you two are gonna go knockin’. Mount up.”

(Their first time taking point on infiltration. Their first time being put directly into the line of fire, because Velasquez knew they could handle themselves, even if they were some of the newest members of S.W.A.T. Maybe they'd been moved up too soon. Given too much freedom. Allowed to get too cocky.

Then again, Gamble had never  _not_ been too cocky for his own good.)

They spread to their assigned areas, following radio check-ins. The LAPD had already secured them a perimeter, cleared the few operational businesses around the old warehouse. Gamble and Street went in low with their riot shields up, taking position on either side of the building’s main access door. The old loading dock door was half-open, the pungent smell of chemicals leaking out from inside. How the hell had they thought this was discrete? Then again, did tweakers ever think?

Gamble signaled and Street nodded, slid his mirror out to look inside. They ducked under the door, creeping along, barely breathing in their position reports.

“Last reports from inside were four to six hostiles, at least three of them armed. Priority is neutralization and hostage rescue,” Velasquez ordered in their headsets.

They froze as they heard footsteps through a doorway, moving to either side of it. Someone--or someones--paced back and forth across the opening. Street pulled a smoke grenade from his belt, yanking the pin. “Deploying smoke.” He tossed it in, the grenade hissing out thick yellow smoke, choking the unprepared hostiles and covering their movements.

It was a bitch and a half without a gas mask, but they’d both done it before. Basic, police academy, overseas.

Two gunshots neutralized two targets and they reported it in as they cleared the room, worked to the next. There was another shot, the sound of glass breaking overhead, and O’Rourke’s voice on the radio. “O’Rourke, one armed hostile neutralized.”

They found the injured officer in the second room, Gamble covering the door as Street radioed it in. “Casualty on ground level, second room to the left from main access door. Gonna need an RA unit, officer has a pulse but appears to have been shot in the kneecap.” He set his finger to his lips as the officer groaned, shushing him gently and glancing down for a name badge. “Easy does it, Simms, you’re gonna be fine. We’ll get you out of here.”

Another gunshot sounded, followed by a curse. “Fuck!” O’Rourke snapped. “Gamble, Street, secure your casualty, you have a hostile coming down the west stairwell to your level.”

They barely needed to exchange a look before acting, Street pulling the injured cop as gently as possible behind a low table, Gamble positioning himself at a half-destroyed desk. He balanced his rifle, keeping it aimed for the door, his finger slipping inside the trigger guard as they heard footsteps.

“Authorization?” Gamble whispered, one eye closing.

“If you have the shot, take it.”

The tweaker busted into the room with them a bare moment later, right into Gamble’s crosshatch. He fired once, sent the man stumbling to his knees before he collapsed face-down. “Gamble. One hostile neutralized.”

“Hernandez here, I have visual on two armed suspects approaching the south exit.”

“Brinks, Santino, hold position until you have visual on the suspects.”

“Copy.”

They heard the breech from across the building, saw plaster dust drift down following the tremor. Brinks and Santino called in their neutralizations and they breathed a sigh of relief.

Voices overhead, cops and agents calling out that it was clear, that they were approaching. Gamble stood, pointed his gun towards the floor. “I better go let the medics in. You covered, Street?”

“Covered.”

They bumped their fists together briefly, unable to help their grins. “Line ‘em up…”

“And knock ’em down,” Street finished for him, nodding to the door. “Building clear, Gamble is on his way to guide the medics to my position.”

There wasn’t a medal to be had, but even Fuller had to grit his teeth and accept that they’d handled their assignment well.

* * *

_v. The First Time They Said “I Love You”_

“Hey Gamble, you--” Street’s question halted with his footsteps, a split-second to take in what he saw and understand it.

Gamble stood in the locker room, back to him, staring at the mess that was his locker. Someone had snapped the padlock on it and strewn the contents around the room, scrawled _FAGGOT_ over the blue metal surface with red paint. Other epithets were written on the inside, _QUEER_ and _HOMO_ and--

He didn’t want to look at those anymore, turned his attention to Gamble. Stock still at first glance, but Street could see the fine tremor running through his shoulders. He stepped forward carefully, his voice low. “Gamble.”

“Fuck off.”

Street grasped his shoulder, refusing to be shaken off by the knee-jerk shrug. “Brian. It’s me.”

“Eight _fucking_ years in the Army. Six of’em in the Rangers. I’m a cop for less than a year and this shit starts like it’s high school for these _fucking psychos_.” He exhaled hard, turned and buried his face against Street’s chest, hid from the mess and the words. “It really doesn’t go away.”

Street closed his arms around him, pressed his nose to the top of Gamble’s head. “Give me their names.”

“I don’t--”

His arms tightened. “Names, Brian.”

“Had to be Martin and Donahue. They…” Gamble’s shoulders shook and Street felt him sniffle in a sob. “I took a guy home last night. Night off, I went to one of… of my kinda bars. Met someone. They live in the same apartment complex as me, one of them or both of them must have seen us. Oh, god, they’re on duty with us _tomorrow_ and--”

Street shushed him gently, rocked him until the shaking stopped. He leaned in close to Gamble’s ear, his voice low and serious. “Do you want to take this to IAD? It’ll probably get out to the rest of the department that you’re… you know, uh…” None of the words that were written on the locker seemed appropriate. “Into guys.” Assuming Martin and Donahue hadn’t already shared that tidbit with as many of their fellow officers as they’d seen. Assuming people hadn’t seen Gamble’s locker and assumed it true.

Gamble shook his head into Street’s shoulder. “IAD won’t do shit.”

“Then I will. You’re positive it was Martin and Donahue?”

He nodded, chanced a look up and they’d been friends for almost a year, Street could read every emotion in those shifting hazel eyes. Hesitant though it was, there was trust shining in them. “What are you gonna do?”

Street grinned, pressed an unashamed kiss to Gamble’s forehead. “You let me worry about that. I don’t let people hurt the ones I love, Bri.”

Somehow, Gamble managed to return the smile, shrugging off the hold on him and stepping back. “Love, huh? You’re fuckin’ lame, but I guess… Love ya, too, Jimbo.”

(He got a three week suspension without pay for breaking Martin’s nose and Donahue’s right hand, but those two had transferred to another precinct by the time he got back, and no one ever bothered Gamble about being gay again.

Worth it.)

* * *

_i. The Last Time They Saw Each Other_

The last time he saw Brian Gamble was in the trainyard.

Street tried to push it from his mind, but it was there, every time the knife wound he’d taken to his hand throbbed. Every time his pager went off with a new call-in, he’d drive down to the station ready to line ’em up and knock ’em down with Gamble, even a year after the bank job they’d fucked up so badly.

(They gave him three weeks paid leave for what happened with Gamble in the trainyard.

Melissa at Paradiso stopped giving him drinks on the house after Gamble stopped coming around.)

It was sort of horrifying, what a train would do to a person. He’d had to give a sworn statement that the body down there was his former partner.

No law enforcement funeral for Gamble, but the military at least covered his burial expenses.

Street stood at the grave long after the others had left, looked down at the name plate stuck into the fresh dirt. There’d be a headstone one day, with some touching quote.

A hundred million could buy at least that.

“You think they’ll let me put ‘life’s a bitch and then you die’ on my headstone?”

Street turned around, his frown growing as he gauged the emotional weather in those shifting hazel eyes. “You’re supposed to be in Mexico.”

“No, I’m supposed to be dead. And I don’t speak Spanish.”

“Five years as a cop in one of the most Hispanic cities in the country, and you never picked up a word of Spanish?”

“ _Hijo de puta_ , but only because that’s what the homeless Mexican lady that lived in my stairwell called me whenever she saw me in uniform.”

Street snorted a laugh, turning away from the grave and walking along the gently sloping path with the man who was supposed to be in it. “So, what’re we calling you now?”

“I dunno yet. Was hoping you’d help me choose.”


End file.
